House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared police chokeholds to be the same as “a lynching” during a Monday appearance on CNN’s “Situation Room.”
According to Pelosi, Republican lawmakers will agree to Democrat demands to ban the practice in a new bill.
Host Wolf Blitzer asked:
“Would it be a deal-breaker if Senate Republicans don’t include an outright ban on chokeholds?”
“I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have a ban on chokeholds. Let’s get reasonable. A chokehold is a lynching. That’s strangulation. It’s a lynching. I think that is almost like the lowest common denominator, but again I will leave it up to my negotiators, because as you know in a negotiation, it’s not what’s in or out, it’s the sum total of the different impact that the legislation will have in justice and policing,” Pelosi responded.
She went on:
“I think that the legislation for my members, from what I have heard them say, does it have a chokehold ban? That’s one of the basic questions that people ask. Look at what we’re talking about here. People who have been so — just had such injustice in terms of policing and the lives of so many people in our country. Let’s do the best we can, not the minimum that we can in this. This is about justice. It’s about redressing past grievances. It’s about, let’s see what we can do. I mean, chokeholds? Am I missing something here?”
WATCH:
Sean Adl-Tabatabai